


Reality is Fluid Through the Fragile Mind

by BrandyFromTheBottle



Series: Tumblr Prompts [12]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Forced Marriage, Hallucinations, Hospitalization, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Incest, M/M, Sibling Incest, ford probably has a brain tumor from all the fucking radiation the idiot, frustrating prose because I'm artsy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 18:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16624073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrandyFromTheBottle/pseuds/BrandyFromTheBottle
Summary: Arranged Marriage: “I know it’s already been arranged, but let me do this properly…Will you marry me?”





	Reality is Fluid Through the Fragile Mind

**Author's Note:**

> [Original tumblr post](https://brandyfromthebottle.tumblr.com/post/172970762282/love-your-aus-i-know-its-already-been-arranged)

“Ford?” Ford’s pen skids across the page, ink falling in fat blots. He over corrects and the nib of the pen catches, the line of ink skips across the page as if it’s too nervous to fully obfuscate the words beneath it. The pen is so nervous that is slips and flies away. Ford watches it with detached surprise. “Ford?” The voice calls again and it almost sounds real. Ford looks down at his hands, his shaking, frightened hands that are covered with ink and scratches and bruises. He tries to brace them against the open face of his journal, to steady them. They feel wet. “There you are!”

Ford’s nails scrape along the page as his tries to cling to reality.

“Go away,” God, is that his voice? It has to be, his throat hurts so much.

“Aw, geez, Pointdexter! What happened?” Ford leaps away from the journal, desk, chair. Everything goes flying, falling and so does Ford he trips backward and down and scrambles back. “Woah, easy. Didn’t mean to spook ya.” Ford’s chest won’t expand; he tries to take fast and shallow breaths. “Heh. Spook.”

Ford is finally forced to look up at the specter above him. Stan looks like static, like smoke, like something that cannot be expressed through physical metaphors. Ford’s mind fills in the off and sideways parts of Stan’s image like a blind spot. If Ford doesn’t look right at him Stan looks the same age when Ford last saw him smile. Stan has the same babyish, pock-marked face and sticky-sweet smile. A soft, James Dean wannabe without money or talent.

If Ford looks long enough for his mind to process what it sees it still can’t. He gets a headache from the flashing slideshow of Stan: Stan-at-his-door, Stan-in-the-basement, Stan-screaming, Stan-bleeding, Stan-slipping-through-the-portal, Stan-crashing-his-car. 

“Shit, Stanford!” Ford spasms, every limb jerking, head slamming into the floor as his eyes roll. He remembers to watch his tongue but it’s impossible, molars crushing the edge of the meat and tearing. “Hey! Hey, he needs help!” Ford tries to shake his head, to grab Stan but his limbs are no longer his as the muscles bunch and release. 

“Well, _geez_ , tough guy!” Ford knows that voice. “Not _my_ fault Sixer's playing musical dimensions.” The voice grates and then detonates. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Ford wants to scream at Stan for being so blase in the face of a monster like Bill. “Fix him.”

“I’d love to but I have a _TINY_ problem.” The words start to knit together into something soft and thick that Ford can’t swallow. He’s so tired, and he can’t remember why he’s so afraid to sleep. He has Stan here. Stan is here, and he’s safe.

* * *

“I mean, I really don’t know about it, but it would be--it’d really be somethin’, huh, Ford?” Ford’s body won’t move. He feels sore and exhausted. Even opening his eyes it almost too much. “Oh! H-hey, Ford! Ford, you okay?” Ford can’t see well through what feels like a mild concussion; without his glasses, it’s a lost cause.

“Stan?” Ford squints. Something warm touches his cheek. 

“Yeah, Ford, I gotcha.” It’s Stan stroking his cheek; his hands are thick and rough and here.

“You came,” Ford can’t smile, there’s too much at stake to smile, but the relief is physical. “I thought you...but you didn’t. You made it.”

“Yeah,” Stan says after a long silence. “I did.”

* * *

“It’s fucking moronic!” Ford screams. The beaker passes through Stan and shatters. He hasn’t progressed to physical projection. 

“Ford, take it easy,” Stan lifts his hands in supplication. He’s wearing--no, projecting--the filthy jacket his showed up in. The mullet. “It’s already done.”

“Like hell it is!” Ford doesn’t have anything else to throw, grabs his hair instead and yanks.

“Woah, hey,” warm hands touch him. It’s glorious and disgusting. Like pissing on a hypothermic limb.

“Stop it!” Ford shoves--it’s useless, his hands pass right through. “Oh God, _stop_.” The warmth persists, and Ford has to go down and down and down and curl into himself to escape it. “Please, please,” his nose is running and he can’t breathe; that’s the only reason he sobs.

“Ford,” Stan’s warmth settles on him again. “Hush, it’ll be okay. I’ll take care of you.” The warmth spreads from his head to his shoulders and down until it is uncomfortable. “Til death do us part, right, brother?”

* * *

 

“How?” A hand pets Ford's hair away from his feverish forehead.

“Good luck, I guess,” Stan says with what sounds like a shrug. Ford feels drunk when he finally lets himself smile.

“Stan.” Somehow his hand finds Stan’s. 

“Yeah,” Stan’s grip is strong and sure. Ford goes cold.

“Stan?” 

“Hm?”

“Stan, it’s not safe," Ford’s mind starts to swim again. He is suddenly gripped by terror. His spine prickles even though he is pressed securely to a bed. Something has gripped his throat and wrapped around his chest. 

“Hey, Ford,” Stan shakes him. “Ford, it’s okay.” 

“I can’t breathe,” Ford wheezes, scratches at his throat until Stan grabs his wrists.

“Woah, hey. Hey!” Something yellow and bright appears behind Stan’s shoulder and Ford tries to scream at Stan to run. “He’s tryn’ to help, Ford, okay?”

* * *

 

“Wedlocked,” Stan calls it. Ford doesn’t understand how he can be so calm until Stan starts to flicker and that insidious terror creeps in.

“I can’t,” Ford says when he’s screamed himself hoarse; when his fists are raw from punching, and his fingers are lacerated from tearing and throwing. Stan’s hand, a projection of energy, is sure and steady as it cleans Ford’s wounds. 

“Ford, even if I could leave,” Stan tips the antiseptic onto the cotton ball. Ford watches it soak the cotton, watches it travel from one fiber to the next. He thinks: that’s what terror looks like. “I’m...I’m worried.”

“You’re...” Ford wants to say a million things. He swallows all of them. The cotton stills and then disappears. In its place another hand settles, making a warm shell.

“Ford, I...” Stan clears his throat. “You know I always…” Ford waits. He dozes. “I know it’s already been arranged,” Ford startles back to wakefulness at Stan’s words.

“Stan?” 

“But I...I always,” one hand leaves Ford’s and Ford just knows that it’s rubbing the back of Stan’s neck. 

“Knucklehead,” Ford says without reason because he felt like it. Because it doesn’t hurt when he murmured it with a smile. The hand around his squeezes.

“Yeah,” Stan huffs. “But, I always wanted to...to do this right. Ya know?” Ford hums like he understands. “So, uh, I’m goin’ to do this right.” Ford’s hand is cradled loosely at the wrist so that it hangs, fingers limp. “So, you wanna maybe...tie the knot, Sixer?” Stan clears his throat the same time Ford’s heart climbs into his. “Marry me?” Ford stares in horror at his hand, at the metal band in Stan’s fingers.

“S-stan,” Ford stutters.

“I know it’s not...not really a choice, Bill and all. But,” Stan pushes the ring forward. “I want you to want this.” 

Ford yanks his hand back, the metal almost burning.

“Stanley,” Ford runs nervous, useless fingers over each other. The ring in Stan’s fingers--the projection of human fingers--glints dangerously. “What did you do?” 

* * *

“Ford, it’ll be okay!” Stan’s voice echoes and fades. The other voices are loud, garish colors on flat, unaffected canvas. 

“Stanley!” Ford doesn’t know if he screams it, slurs it, imagines it. He feels like a pea under a mattress and he doesn’t know if he should go deeper or struggle free. Ford can’t do anything more than stare at the passing fluorescent lights that flicker between the stained drop-ceiling.

“Relax, Sixer, it’s a big day” Ford’s head rolls limply to look at the speaker. He sees blue scrubs, white gloves, yellow eyes. “Mazel tov.”

* * *

Ford wakes up in the hospital feeling calm and almost giddy. He gets distracted by the sensation of his chest expanding and contracting and he imagines the ballooning of his lungs around his heart. It feels so nice to breathe. He thinks he hears someone else breathing and wants to tell them how nice it is to breathe.

“Hueh,” he says instead and it feels even better to breathe and exhale with vibration. He does it again. “Hmmnn.” 

“Ford?” Ford hums again, louder. He frowns when it hurts. “Hey, buddy.” Ford carefully opens his eyes, the room is dim and blurry. He wonders if he's going blind. “I really don't want to but I gotta get a nurse. Lashandra only let me stay if I promised to get her.” Ford nods at the blurry shape in front of him. “Okay, just don’t. Don't go anywhere.” Ford hums again because he isn't going anywhere. “Wait.” Stan doubles back and almost pokes out one of Ford’s eyes putting his glasses on. “Okay, I’ll. Be right back.”

The nurse comes in and does some tests, asks some questions and Ford slowly come back to himself.

"Any more hallucinations? Delusions?" She asks casually.

"Huh?" Ford blinks slowly at her and shakes his head to clear it of the persistent cobwebs crowding out his thoughts.

“Good, You were very ill for a bit. You are very lucky your brother was with you. Oh, right. Dr. Pines, do you know the man behind me?” She points a pen at Stan; Stan waves. 

“Of course,” Ford finds it easier to speak now that he has a cup of water complete with lid and straw. 

“And who is he?” The nurse prompts when Ford gets lost sucking on the straw.

“Stanley,” he says and grins. “He's my husband.” He frowns when Stan starts to choke.

“Are you sure?” The nurse gives him a concerned look when it's really Stan she should be worried about. 

“Yes,” Ford holds out his cup. “Water?” Stan looks dazed when he accepts. 

“Okay, I'll update the doctor.” The nurse writes something on the clipboard. “Mr. Pines, please don't drink your brother's water.” Stan shrugs and sucks loudly. She makes a noise of disgust and lightly smacks him with while taking the empty cup. “I'll call security.” She leaves, hopefully, to get more water. Stan sits carefully on the bed next to Ford.

“Husband?” He takes Ford's hand, careful of the tubes. “When’d that happen?” Ford doesn’t remember. “You just decide that without me?” Ford shakes his head.

“No, I,” Ford frowns. “You’re right. I need to do this right.” Ford maneuvers his hands to hold Stan’s. 

“Okay,” Stan chuckles. “You are really high, though. Or your brain’s still--whatever.” 

“Whatever,” Ford agrees. “Stanley, will you marry me?” Ford panics when Stan doubles over their hands and shakes. “Stan!”

“Oh my God,” Stan finally looks up at him, face red from laughing. 

“Stanley,” Ford scolds. 

“I’m never letting this go,” Stan wheezes. 

“Is that a yes?” Ford asks, suddenly anxious. Stan chuckles a few more times, wipes his eyes against their joined hands.

“Sure, Ford. I’ll marry you.” Stan shakes his head fondly but jerks a little when Ford pulls their hands to his mouth. “Ford?”

“I love you,” Ford hums against Stan’s knuckles. 

“You are  _really_ fuckin’ high.”


End file.
